In order to get my Computer Engineering degree, I have to develop a project during the last year at university. I chose to develop a 2D graphic adventure, but in order to do so, I somehow created my own "parser".

So my project is a framework/engine/parser (whatever you want to call it) and a small adventure which uses this engine. The engine is called Grog, and the adventure has no working title yet.

I've used Ruby and Gosu to code this project. It's been great! If it weren't for Ruby and Gosu, I couldn't have finished it on time (and wouldn't have had so much fun). So, many thanks, Julian, you rock!

The engine, Grog, is pretty much finished, but the adventure is still on development, mainly because of graphic resources. A friend of mine, Silvia Coleto is drawing the backgrounds and I have to draw the characters. I need to present this in front of a tribunal the 19th June, so I better finish the adventure soon :)

I plan to make the engine's code free software. However, since I was no Ruby expert when I started to program it (and I'm still not!), the code from the beginning is kind of ugly, compared to the most recent. However, I think it could be useful for some people... so I'll probably do a little bit of refactoring and release it under GPL or MIT.

Wow, that looks great!
I'm assuming the little nodes on the second picture are a movement path?
Fantastic work.

Thanks! :)

Yes, the nodes are a movement path. Even more, each node can have its own size and Z, and that affects the character. So, you can make the main character bigger or smaller (for perspective effects) and change its Z coordinate to make him pass behind a streetlamp, for example.

Right now I'm looking for a video recording software to grab a short video showing this, but the ones I tried only record at a low fps rate :(

Very Nice!

Love the Anime style graphics, keep up the good work

Looking forward to playing your game when it finished!

You could try snagit ,its not too bad when it comes to video capturing,not sure if the frame rates will be high enough for you though

worth a try though if you have not tryed it already

Beautiful! :)

It seems you are on OS X from the screenshots? I'd give SnapzPro X a try. Not sure if the trial will add a watermark, but it has been able to capture at a VERY good framerate here. Its UI is beyond horrible, though :)

Were you the one who uploaded that test video on youtube with Broken Sword graphic? :O

Anyway, the engine looks very cool! Surprisingly, my senior project is also a game engine/framework haha. It is too bad that I can't use Ruby/Gosu for that :(  My advisor wants me to use D programming language instead.

Can't wait to see the full release of the engine. I'm a sucker for point&click adventure XD

Just awesome.

Oh, one question:

How does movement work? Should the user press a button on the keyboard? Or is it really point-and-click like mentioned before?
If it is point-and-click, does the user have to click on a node precicely, or do you have some kind of proximity thing.

It's 100% point & click. And no, the player does not have to click exactly on one node. The player clicks in an empty area (ie, not an item or character) and the engine calculates the closest node to that point and the character walks torwards that node. You cannot interrupt a movement (stop), but you can change the destination by just clicking in another empty area.

In addition to that, each item and NPC has a node assigned, so when you try to interact with them (use, talk to, pick up...), the character first walks to that node and then performs the action :)

>It's 100% point & click. And no, the player does not have to click exactly on one node. The player clicks in an empty area (ie, not an item or character) and the engine calculates the closest node to that point and the character walks torwards that node. You cannot interrupt a movement (stop), but you can change the destination by just clicking in another empty area.
>In addition to that, each item and NPC has a node assigned, so when you try to interact with them (use, talk to, pick up...), the character first walks to that node and then performs the action :)

Nice!

Second that.

Yesterday I presented my project at university in front of a tribunal and this video was part of the presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfTRZOhQQnE

Current goals are finishing 100% the engine and the small example adventure. I'll keep you up to date!

Nice Job Benko,well done ;)

Will you be uploading the game here when you are finished?

It looks awesome.

Very nice. It looks so smooth. I wish I had extracted my skeletal animation framework, not sure how well it would work for moving in the Z direction, but maybe it would have been of use for you :)

Hey benko, do you still have the screenshots and … hey, what about the final? :)

Hi Julian, I have the screenshots, should I upload them again?

And about the final version, I couldn't finish it :( Been working the whole summer and now my studies are keeping me ultra-busy. I Guess I should stick to small projects from now on...

Yeah, screenshots would be cool. Do you want to upload the state as it is? I doubt anyone will come to finish it, but I know at least one person is wondering how to implement a game like it :)

Hope you get an impulse to work on it again when the workload goes down, it's not a small project but it looks so promising!